


Wanderlust

by glitteratiglue



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Romance, Sexual Tension, Shore Leave, Telepathy, Travel, one of these is just porn in a nice tropical setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21833986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: Six vacations Deanna and Will took: as friends, lovers and everything in between.
Relationships: William Riker/Deanna Troi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 72





	Wanderlust

**1.**

**Temtibi Lagoon, Risa**

**2365**

“All that is ours is yours.”

Deanna looks up from her book to find the voice belongs to a very lovely blonde in a red swimsuit that just about covers the essentials.

“Your companion,” the Risian woman says in lilting tones. She gestures to Will, who is face down on his sun lounger and fast asleep. “He displays the horg’ahn, but he does not respond to my greetings. Perhaps you may rouse him.”

“Of course,” Deanna says, amused.

A weekend in paradise had turned out to be just what the doctor ordered after Will’s recovery from the neural parasite he caught on Suraya IV (literally: _“You need a vacation, the both of you. Go.”_ had been Dr Pulaski’s command before she sent the pair of them off to Risa).

She reaches over to pinch Will’s arm.

He’s awake in a second, rolling over. “Ow! Deanna, what are you playing at?”

Then he stops, one hand sliding up his sunglasses so he can fix those deadly blue eyes of his on the woman standing over them.

“Hi there; I'm Will. Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Will waves a hand in the direction of the lagoon before raking his eyes obviously over their companion’s form.

“Ga’nera,” she says with a sultry smile, extending a hand to him. “All that is ours is yours.”

Deanna turns back to the Earth Western she was reading, half-listening while Will charms Ga’nera and the conversation moves on to the subject of jamaharon.

He asks inside her head: _Want to join? She likes you, too._ Deanna looks up in surprise to see his eyes on hers, questioning but not expectant.

She arches an eyebrow. _You know I prefer brunettes. I’ll sit this one out; you have fun._

Will winks at her and lets the delightful Ga’nera lead him away.

Deanna is absorbed in her book when she’s hit by a torrent of lustful images from Will. She’s sure it’s not intentional, but the effects from the link she created to bring him out of his coma still linger.

She puts down the PADD, feeling distinctly hot and bothered, her nipples peaking beneath her swimsuit.

A dark-haired woman walks past, a ja’risia disk visible on her forehead, and Deanna puts out an arm to stop her. The woman’s eyes stray to the hor’gahn between them and a slow smile spreads across her face.

“All that is mine is yours,” Deanna says, with Fifth-House confidence that would put her mother to shame.

“I’m not arguing,” is the reply.

She and Will debrief later in their bathrobes over an exotic fruit platter.

“You know,” he tells her, leaning forward in his wicker chair to take a slice of purple Risian papaya, “when I came here for summer vacation as a cadet, I was so uptight. I couldn’t believe the stuff people wore here. I was too terrified to even buy a horg’ahn, much less display it. My friends were all having the time of their lives and I was getting a tan and catching up on my reading.” He shakes his head.

“Too bad,” Deanna says, her expression teasing, “As you well know, the first time I came here, I took full advantage of it.”

He makes an apologetic face, as he always does when they touch on the fact he left her here all those years ago. At least she didn’t let the grass grow under her feet.

“Should have been me instead,” he says ruefully.

She tosses a grape at him and dodges the papaya segment he throws at her in return.

How deviant their strait-laced captain would think them right now. She rather enjoys the idea of the whole ship thinking Commander Riker and Counselor Troi are down on Risa having a torrid affair.

Nothing could be further from the truth. At least for right now, anyway.

**2.**

**Angel Falls, Venezuela**

**Earth**

**_2367_ **

“I can’t believe you talked me into hiking up to the second lookout point,” Will says, pushing sweaty hair off his forehead and reaching for the water bottle at his hip. “I need to put in more hours at the gym.”

They’re on their way up to what is said to be the best vantage point for the towering falls. The jungle around them is bright with exotic flora, the calls of parrots echoing in the trees above them. It's also incredibly close and airless.

“I seem to recall we got plenty of exercise the last time we were here,” Deanna says, playful. She pours water into her hands from her bottle and splashes her face with it.

It was just weeks before Will shipped out to the _Potemkin_ and her first year in Starfleet. They started with a couple of days in the human anthill of Mexico City, but things were different when they made it out this way. She remembers them barely leaving their hotel room, still so caught up in the rush of infatuation they had to have each other day and night. Her fingers laced into Will’s while he moved inside her, pressing the sweetest kisses to her cheek, her forehead as he whispered how perfect she was, how much he loved her, how he’d never leave her. A promise they both knew he couldn’t keep much longer.

Back then, she could never have imagined their future selves, the best of friends and colleagues. Over the years, Will has come to see her for the imperfect person that she is, and she has learned not to take life too seriously.

“Mm,” Will says, his face thoughtful. “Didn’t see much of the outdoors, did we? But I still remember that shuttle we took over the falls at twilight.” His eyes soften with the memory. “That was an amazing trip.”

“So is this one,” Deanna tells him, trying to bring them both back into the moment. “Come on, Commander. Let’s press on.” She pokes his shoulder. “Are you up to it?”

It only takes five more minutes of climbing to reach the top. When Will’s hand pulls her up on to the ridge, Deanna gets her first look at more than nine hundred metres of water thundering down from the rock of the mountain above. She closes her eyes briefly, listening to the roar of the falls as she stretches her hands out far enough to feel the spray.

It’s not busy; only a few other tourists are here and the vista before them is breathtaking.

“Don’t fall off,” Will jokes, slipping an arm around her waist as if there isn’t a holographic safety field around the entire area.

He's been prone to nostalgia all morning and they’re in an insanely romantic setting; it wouldn’t take an empath to figure out what’s on his mind. She reluctantly turns away from the view to find his startlingly blue eyes on hers. His hand is reaching for her chin, tipping it up.

“Will,” she says warningly, but she’s already moving to close the distance between them as he dips his head. He captures her mouth in a deep kiss, too deep to be friendly, but she finds herself swept up in the moment anyway.

Over the years, they’ve become experts at navigating the spaces in between whatever it is they are, hovering on the edge of an attraction they usually pretend doesn’t exist. This isn’t the first time — nor the only time they’ve gone much, much further than this — and they’ve learned to laugh off the occasional moments when they end up in those in-between spaces.

“Yuck, you’re sweaty,” Deanna says, pushing him back with a hand on his chest.

Will looks rather dazed, but he grins at her. He gestures to the sweeping landscape before them.

“Quite a view, eh, imzadi?”

“As beautiful as it was the first time we came.” She kisses him on the cheek and he slips a hand into hers. “This trip isn’t going to do anything to stop Beverly’s questions about us, you know,” she adds, amused.

“Or the captain,” Will says. “He actually asked me if we were seeing each other again. I believe he used the phrase ‘one of the most romantic vacation spots in the world’.”

“Jean-Luc? Really?” Deanna can’t quite imagine the conversation. “What did you tell him?”

“Dodged the question,” Will explains with a smirk. “I spent a while blathering on about the meaning of the word _imzadi_ until he got awkward and started talking about the refit again.”

They stay up there until time forces them to hike back down for the evening shuttle.

———

Will’s hotel room has the best view, and they watch from the window as crepuscular light fades into soft purple over the table of the mountain.

“I was so close to taking the commission on the _Melbourne_ ,” he admits in a small voice. “I was going to. You want to know why I didn’t?”

“I know, Will.” The words don’t come out easily; her throat is tight with everything else she can’t say.

This time, she’s the one that kisses him, and when she tugs him towards the bed, he follows without hesitation. Their clothes are on the floor before Deanna checks herself, wonders if it will complicate the ease of their friendship. In the end, the illicit thrill of feeling Will — her best friend, her commanding officer, her occasional lover — hot and naked against her quashes any doubts still lingering in her mind.

“I’ve wanted you all day, Deanna,” he tells her without a trace of shame, his fingers tracing her cheek. He’s hard against her thigh and shaking.

“So, have me,” she says, a little desperately, drawing her thighs up around his hips.

———

Two days later, they’re back on the bridge in their uniforms like it never happened. She watches Will scratch at the collar of his uniform shirt and tries not to think about the bite mark beneath it made by her teeth.

**3.**

**Rixx, Betazed**

**_2368_ **

Will had a hard time talking the transporter crew into letting an off-duty Starfleet officer bring a phaser into the capital city.

“We’re a peaceful planet, Will,” Deanna says. “You can’t blame them.”

“You never know when a marauding Ferengi’s going to be lurking around a corner,” Will says, mostly serious but not entirely. He tucks the phaser out of sight.

She can’t exactly blame him; it was only a few months ago they were kidnapped by DaiMon Tog.

“Pity Lwaxana isn’t here,” he tells her. “Mr Homn’s cooking is truly excellent, and I’m sure she’d have some great stories to tell us.”

“Yes, such a pity,” Deanna replies, a smile turning up the corners of her lips. “So unfortunate my mother happened to be enmeshed in negotiations on Boradis II.” She points at a holo-ad ahead of them on the street. “Look, the eighth symphony are throwing a chamber concert tonight. Let’s go.”

Betazoid concerts last around four hours, no interval. Deanna can feel Will’s mind struggling to focus after the first hour, though he tries his best. She slips into a familiar meditative state where she’s at one with the music, and when the applause starts, she finds him snoring softly at her side.

“ _Will,”_ she mutters, elbowing him in the ribs. He wakes with a start, garnering disapproving whispers and glances from those around them for his very human behaviour.

_Sorry. Guess I’ve been working too hard._

The Betazoids around them relax somewhat when they hear Will speaking to her in his mind.

 _At least the human has learned some rudimentary telepathy,_ says the sharp telepathic voice of an older woman two seats away, clad in a jewelled, feathered number that would make Lwaxana’s fashion sense look understated.

 _Not bad, for a brutish type_ , says her hawk-faced companion.

Next to her, Deanna feels Will’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

———

Over the next few days, they do all of Deanna’s favourite things — after all, it’s her planet. They climb in the Loneel Mountains, enjoy new delicacies from across the quadrant in the hip cafés of Rixx and picnic by the shores of tranquil Lake Cataria. Will is happy to go along with it all: Betazed holds some of his best memories and she knows he loves to revisit the places that were theirs, once upon a time.

They’ve taken separate rooms at her Fifth House ancestral home, and maybe that’s for the best. Last time they were on her home planet, their intentions were completely different, but they’ve both dated others since then and shifted seamlessly back into their comfortable friendship.

One afternoon, they’re caught in a rainstorm.

It’s been years since Deanna dealt with Betazed’s unpredictable weather and she has forgotten her mother’s edict to always carry an umbrella. Will is at least wearing several layers, but she isn’t and ends up soaked to the skin by the time they reach the house.

The environmental controls aren’t working fast enough so she runs upstairs and changes quickly, her fingers stiff from the cold. Will bustles about, sweetly concerned. He lights the holographic fire in her bedroom and brings her an extra blanket and a towel to pat at her hair.

“W-will,” she says, teeth chattering. “You’re being ridiculous. It’ll warm up soon; I’m going to roast.”

He kicks his shoes off and climbs into the bed with her.

“Body heat,” Will says by way of explanation. “One of the most effective ways to warm up.”

She dimly recalls him doing the same for her on board the _Krayton_ , given the colder temperatures preferred by Ferengi.

“Isn’t that convenient,” Deanna says, an edge of sarcasm in her voice even as she pulls his arm around her. He’s so warm, like a six-foot-three space heater, and she sighs a little as he curls around her.

“Convenient _and_ practical,” Will agrees, and he can’t hide the fact he’s enjoying this a little.

“If this were one of my mother’s romance novels, we’d roll over to face each other and then you’d ravish me.” She’s only joking. Mostly.

“Ravish you? Ha.” Deanna senses the bright burst of amusement in Will’s mind and has the distinct feeling his thoughts are turning towards ravishing, but he swiftly banishes that impulse.

She doesn’t have the heart to tease him about it.

Will remains the perfect gentleman as they fall asleep together. He goes back to his own bed without complaint when they both wake up sweating and have to turn the fire off.

**4.**

**Horvian Ka’Lai Resort, Casparia Prime**

**_2372_ **

“Oh, _God,”_ Will whispers as he presses inside her slowly, slowly, slowly. One of his large hands grips the back of her thigh, hard enough to bruise, pushing it upwards so he can slide deeper still.

“Will.” Deanna breathes his name in a sigh, her hands slipping on his sweat-slick back as she pulls him closer. They’ve been teasing each other with hands and mouths for what feels like hours, and to finally have him right _there_ , where she’s open and wet around him makes her moan unabashedly.

Their water bungalow has no environmental controls, as per its rustic image. At least the thin curtains let in a cross-breeze that prevents the room from being entirely airless. The PADD with Dr Bashir’s fascinating paper ‘ _Eugenics, Gods and Monsters: A History of Genetic Engineering’_ lies abandoned on the floor by the bed. Deanna had intended to spend tonight reading the latest research from the conference speakers, but when Will kissed her, she felt the coil of frustration within him that mirrored her own and she wasn’t about to fight it. The long months of separation while the new _Enterprise_ is built have weighed heavily on them both. This doesn’t seem the time to draw new lines across their relationship, not when she can feel how desperately he’s missed her.

“Deanna,” Will says, so softly as he starts to move, his thrusts careful but deep in a way that steals her breath. “Is that good?”

His voice is ragged, stripped of all its sureness and command confidence. She loves that she can still do this to him, though it’s been years since they first met and more than two years since she’s had him in this way.

“Mm, yes.” It’s a question that hardly needs an answer, not when her mind is open to him and she’s sending sparks of her own arousal with every stroke of him inside her.

They don’t often indulge in their telepathic link, but when it comes to sex, the need to inhabit each other’s minds is near-irresistible. Not even Betazoid lovers can come close to how deeply Will knows her mind, how he can wrap his thoughts around hers and drown himself in her arousal until it’s part of his own.

Thoughts cross from his mind to hers: how it never feels this way with anyone else, the sheer relief and sense of _rightness_ as he moves and she rocks into his thrusts.

_You feel so good, Deanna. Do you like that?_

_You know I do, Will_ , she gently reproves inside her head, aware that even the voice in her mind is fond and soft with entirely too much feeling. She needs to get a handle on it, and fast.

Pushing at his chest, she squeezes her thighs together and flips him over in one deft move.

 _Have I ever told you you’re sexy as hell?_ is the unfiltered thought in his mind as he finds himself unceremoniously flat on his back.

Deanna laughs, raising a hand to sweep her sweaty hair off her face. _Never heard that one before._

Now Will is laughing, too as he reaches down to guide himself back into her.

“My compliments to Worf. He's an excellent mok’bara instructor.” She picks up on a mischievous thread in Will's thoughts — it’s only been months since Worf’s disappearance to a Klingon monastery and all the endings that came with it.

“Will,” Deanna admonishes. “You’re gloating.” She allows herself a languorous sigh of pleasure as she shifts forward, finding a new angle that’s beyond perfect.

“Can you blame me?” Will murmurs, possessive in a way most unlike him, fingertips of one hand digging into her hip almost painfully. _Say, did he make you feel like this?_ He arches into her, making her gasp softly. _This?_ His fingers pinch at her nipple just the right way, the way she likes it, and she makes a sound not far from a scream.

_Does he know your body like I do? Can he make you come as hard as I can?_

Will’s words, as much as they make heat rise in her body, push at a place inside her that’s still bruised. Maybe they wouldn’t have worked out in the end, but Worf had only seen fit to tell her about his new monastic life path via a one-line communiqué, and she’d thought she was worth more than that. Deanna entertains the brief impulse of climbing off Will, to teach him a lesson, but there’s no way she can stop right now, not when she’s trembling, already on the edge of her third orgasm of the night.

“You’ve made your point, Will,” she says, and his eyes flash with regret. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m sorry. Got carried away.” He frowns, his hands dropping back to her hips as she moves over him. “Not my business, I know.”

She presses a finger to his lips. _Hush._

Now Deanna sets the pace, her expression playful as she pulls his left hand up to rest on her breast, her right hand sliding downwards to rub slow circles where she’s wet and tingling already. Will’s eyes watch her all the while, his gaze hot as plasma fire on her skin. He tweaks at her nipple and she rides him punishingly hard until she comes, dragging him over the edge with her into an empathic feedback loop of pleasure that ends with them both in a satisfied, sweaty heap.

After a much-needed shower, they sit on the stoop outside, wrapped in blankets as tropical moonlight plays over the rolling waters below their feet. Will checks department resource allocations for the _Enterprise-E_ like the Starfleet company man he’s always been, and she goes over her notes for tomorrow’s keynote speech at the Casparia Medical Conference.

She sits with her feet in his lap, the breeze lifting her hair and wonders at how their relationship never manages to get beyond this part.

**5.**

**Tycho City, Luna**

**_2375_ **

“These environment suits are so bulky,” Deanna complains. It’s only just gone three am by Lunar time and she’s grumpy with the early start. “Why are we doing this again?” She gestures back to the domed expanse of Tycho City behind them.

Will responds by leaning over to click the sides of her helmet shut.

“There. Perfect,” he says, voice tinny through the comlink. He taps at the clear bubble covering her head. “A Lunar sunrise is meant to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences everyone should try.”

She smiles when she picks up on his emotional state. Will is practically fizzing with excitement: he’s always had an explorer’s spirit, forever seeking out new experiences and thrills.

The airlock doors hiss open and they join the several others hiking out onto the vast, basaltic plains of Luna’s surface. Having both grown up down the gravity well on planets, movement in the moon’s lower gravity doesn’t come easily to them. Despite headlamps, they stumble several times in the darkness and have to hold onto each other to stay upright.

“We’re over the Sea of Clouds,” Deanna says after a few minutes, checking her tricorder. “The boulders just up ahead should be a good place to view the sunrise.”

“Mm, great.” Will sounds distracted; he is kneeling, fiddling with the mag-lock on his boots. He presses the wrong button and bounces off the plain, landing in an undignified heap at her feet.

“Need a hand?” Deanna says with a gentle smile, reaching for him. She marvels at the ease of lifting a more-than-two-hundred-pound Starfleet officer like he weighs nothing.

“Thanks.”

When they reach the rocky outcrop up ahead, the tricorder in Will’s belt starts beeping like crazy.

“It’s starting.” He points into the distance, a grin spreading across his face. “Look.”

It begins with a soft glow pushing itself from beneath the horizon. Then the light rises swiftly: a sweep of gold that surges up from the horizon, illuminating the boulders and craters surrounding them, picking out the seams of silvery metal etched into the ground. Brighter still is the gleam in Will’s eyes as he looks back at her.

“Hey, imzadi,” he says fondly. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be here with.” Emotions are pouring from him: utter gratitude from sharing this with her and a sincere wish for many more days like this one.

Deanna draws up her empathic shields, trying to pretend she’s not affected by Will’s sweet earnestness, the way he can’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve around her while he keeps it tucked away around others.

“I don’t know how you manage to say things like that with a straight face.” She's smiling all the same.

“Guess it’s just my style,” Will says easily, and she can feel he doesn’t mind a bit that she’s teasing him.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Deanna says in awe, turning her face back to the light. Beverly has often told her of Luna’s strange, otherworldly beauty from her years in Copernicus City, and it truly has to be seen to be believed.

His gloved hand reaches for hers and their covered fingers touch beneath a lunar sunrise, the Earth an emerald-cerulean smudge in the distance.

Much later, after too many glasses of Lunar whiskey at a Tycho jazz bar, she lets Will kiss her, but has the good sense to decline when he asks her into his hotel room. The _Enterprise’s_ archaeological survey of Hanoran II starts in three days and they both need their rest.

The truth is: the more Deanna invites Will into her bed, the harder it becomes to pretend that the boundary lines between them even exist anymore. Sometimes she thinks they’re only a step from tearing down the paper-thin wall that separates them, but they’re both rightfully afraid of losing what they already have.

A couple of weeks and a hefty dose of metaphasic radiation later, she abruptly realises that Will was the only one of the two of them willing to admit what had been there between them all along.

At least she didn’t deny it this time.

**6.**

**Bangkok, Thailand, Earth**

**_2378_ **

“Will, I’m sure we’ve already tried this one.”

“It’s got to be down here,” Will is saying as he tugs at her hand.

They’ve been tramping the streets of Bangkok for an hour, hunting for some hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Will swears makes the best green papaya salad on Earth.

After all the business with Reg Barclay and the Pathfinder breach, Deanna had felt the need to get out of San Francisco. Somehow, Reg had hit it off with Maril following their double date, and Deanna and Will had wisely made themselves scarce the very next morning.

Deanna remains somewhat wistful for the Tiburon beach house they were supposed to be spending their shore leave in, but Will’s suggestion of Bangkok has proved to be inspired thus far. Thailand reminds Deanna of Betazed in some ways, with its geometric textiles, spicy cuisine and beautiful, well-preserved religious monuments. Although the people are less interested in philosophy and navel-gazing here; Bangkok is undoubtedly a city devoted to fun. She can see why Will has always loved it.

“Here!” Will exclaims triumphantly. He points at a small building ahead of them with a corrugated-ditanium roof, a jasmine tree at its entrance.

A small, robust-looking older Thai woman comes out and embraces Will. “Will Riker! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes.”

“She remembers me,” he says, laughing. “Deanna Troi, this is Kanya Srisuk. She’s one of the last people still making som tam in the old style — by hand.”

“Wonderful to meet you, Deanna.” Kanya smiles warmly and pulls her into a tight hug. “Your husband’s one of my best customers. I only see him once every few years, of course.”

“More’s the pity,” Will says, gesturing for Deanna to sit on one of the polymer stools by the fold-up table. “And we're not married. She's my girlfriend.” He winks at Deanna and Kanya's eyes narrow as if she thinks her original assumption should be true.

 _Girlfriend? Aren't we getting a little old for such terms, imzadi,_ Deanna sends, knowing Will can hear her silent laughter inside his head.

“Replicators,” Kanya says, scowling as she gets to work. “You can’t tell me they can bruise the ingredients like my pestle and mortar.”

“Reminds me of Miles’s mother,” Deanna observes.

Will smiles, remembering. “Sometimes Dad didn’t hold with replicated food either. Especially not when we caught fish.”

Deanna is quietly fascinated by the process, watching as Kanya tips a shower of colourful ingredients into the mortar and transfigures them into a salad with brute force.

Will slides the bowl across the table and offers her a forkful. Sensations burst on her tongue: crunchy and sour and deeply savoury, accompanied by the capaiscin burn of bird’s-eye chilli.

“Mmm,” she says as she swallows, aware that it’s half a moan and that Will’s pupils are dilating already as he looks at her.

It would be nothing at all to take his hand right now, pull him in with a kiss and he’d be lost, give anything of himself to her. It’s a truth they’ve never voiced, telepathically or otherwise, but every part of Will belongs to her, and he lets her see all of it, even the bruised and ugly places inside of him, the regrets and shameful secrets only she knows. The pull she has over him is a power like nothing she’s ever felt. It used to scare her, sometimes, the truth that he was hers all along. Scarier still was the knowledge that she was his, too, whether she wanted to admit it or not. The strength of their bond has always transcended both the physical and the emotional relationships they’ve shared with others over the years.

“Good, right?” Will’s grin is pleased.

Deanna nods and dips the fork back into the bowl. “Now, you try some.”

She holds out the fork to him and his lips close around it, sparkling blue eyes burning a hole right through her.

— — —

That same intensity comes through much later in their hotel room: its curtains drawn, the hum of parties on the street outside drifting in.

Will spreads her out on the sheets in the low light and strips her slowly, takes her apart with his mouth and his fingers and the pleasure entangling around their twinned minds. Her hands are twisted in his hair, legs parted by his broad shoulders while his thumbs brush at the skin of her inner thighs, opening her wide for his mouth until she comes for him with a soft cry. She’s overwhelmed and shaking by the time he enters her, her every thought screaming _please_ and _like that, Will_ and _right there, yes._

“Hey,” he says, low, his forehead pressed to hers. He's inside her and starting to move just a little.

“Imzadi,” Deanna says, stretching up to kiss him, one hand around the back of his neck. His mouth is hot and he still tastes of her. “You’re there.”

She can taste release in his thoughts; he’s so turned on from pleasing her that if she pushed at that coiled place in his mind, he’d come for her right this second, but she can tell he wants to make this last.

“And I always will be,” Will tells her, the words a little shaky as she wraps her legs around him, drawing him closer on the next thrust.

Deanna gets flashes in her mind of herself beneath him — pressed into the bed, lips parted in a moan as he fucks into her — and she moans for real when she senses how much it excites him to take her like this, to sink into her mind and fall.

Nobody else could come close to this, the way Will gives her his body and his mind and lets his pleasure become her own. He wants to give her everything and she’ll never not want to let him. The white heat of their connection flares bright as they move together, and she comes apart with him in her mind and his fingers circling her clit, letting him share in her climax until it becomes his own, too.

It’s not until afterwards that she considers the implications of his use of the word _always_. It’s not far from _forever, until death do us part, for the rest of our lives._ Such words imply a permanence Deanna has never managed to buy into, at least not since she was seven and learned for the first time how loss carves out spaces in your heart. But Will has those same spaces inside of him, too, and he believes anyway, with all the conviction that made her love his younger self, all those years ago on the other side of time.

Maybe for him, she could try. 

“It’s true; I could die next week in a transporter malfunction,” Will says, cheerfully morbid with one eyebrow raised, and it’s obvious he’s been sifting through her thoughts. He can’t help it most of the time, still thoroughly enchanted by the connection they no longer have any reason to deny.

“The sun might go supernova tonight,” Deanna replies, playing along while wondering where he’s going with this.

“The Tholians could bomb us all to hell and send Earth into nuclear winter.”

“The Borg might come back for us once and for all and win this time.”

“Best make the most of it, then,” Will observes, a wolfish grin on his face. He slides fingers around the back of her neck and kisses her in a way that makes his intentions extremely clear.

He pulls back, his gaze intense on hers. “Want to get married, imzadi?”

“You’re impossible,” Deanna says. Her hands are already on Will’s shoulders, bearing him down onto the sheets.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He’s not wrong about that.


End file.
